African americans wwii 001

WWII Soldier Timeline

  • Period: to

    WWII

  • Joining the Fight!

    Joining the Fight!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=einX74KSE40
    Glenn Frazier in the summer of 1941 discovered that the girl he loved was interested in someone else. He became very angry and ran his motorcycle through the door of a bar. Bar owner chased him down the street with a shotgun. The next morning he was so humiliated and didn’t want to face his parents so he lied about his age and joined the peacetime army. Mindful of the war already raging in Europe, voluntee
  • Arrival

    Arrival
    Frazier landed on Philippine Island of Luzon. He was assigned to 75th Ordinance Depot and Supply Company. He thought he would be safe here in the Philippines because most of the war was going on in Europe
  • Attacked!

    Attacked!
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HCtHF44T-EU
    Frazier thought he would be safe here. But he was wrong. The Japanese attacked their postion. Frazier, a corporal now, found himself in the middle of a war that he thought he would never need to fight Under orders from General MacArthur Frazier retreated to the Bataan Peninsula. Most of the army's supplies was left behind. The rations had to be cut in half.
  • Surrender

    Surrender
    Frazier became part of largest surrender by the United States Army in history. 78,000 American and Filipino troops surrendered to the Japanese. Frazier was then taken and made to go on the Bataan Death march. He survived through the Death March
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AryZD0k-Iho
  • Camp O'Donnell

    Camp O'Donnell
    Frazier and the rest of the march arrived at end of Death March at Camp O’Donnell. The survivors endured months of horrific conditions at the camp. Hundreds of prisoners died every day from disease, starvation, and abuse.
  • Family

    Family
    Frazier volunteered to work on a burial detail at the camp. He decided to throw one of his two sets of dog tags into the mass grave. Frazier hoped that if he died somewhere in the Philippines jungles, his parents would have an idea of what happened to him. It would be better if his parents had an idea then nothing at all.
  • The Camps

    The Camps
    Frazier was shipped to Japan. He spent nearly three nightmarish years in a number of prison camps there. He was forced to perform slave labor. Frazier and fellow prisoners did their best to sabotage the Japanese war effort.
  • Desperation

    Desperation
    So far in his imprisonment Frazier had survived double pneumonia, torture, a week of isolation in a covered pit, and beatings that were becoming a routine. He had been bayoneted in the knee by a guard as punishment for not lifting his legs high enough while marching. When he was bayoneted in the knee he almost lost his leg to gangrene.
  • Telegram

    Telegram
    Because Frazier had not been heard from in 2 and a half years the army sent a telegram to his family saying that he was presumed dead. His family was devastated. They cared very much about their son and they didn't want to believe that he had died.
  • Confirmed

    Confirmed
    Fraziers dog tags are discovered by the Americans when they retook the Philippines. The army notified his family that he was now confirmed to be dead. His father would not accept that his son had died. He denied it the whole time and would not believe what the army had told him.
  • Hope

    Hope
    Frazier witnessed American bombing of Japan and hoped that the war’s end might be in sight. Frazier hoped that he might get to go home soon. He missed his parents and wanted desperately for the war to end. He wanted to go home.
  • Freedom

    Freedom
    Frazier and his fellow POWs were given orders to dig their own graves, after the first atomic bomb dropped. After the second bomb was dropped the guards at the prison camp simply walked away. Frazier and many other POWs walked out among the dazed Japanese civilians and took the train to Tokyo and freedom.